Is it so baffling that people are getting tired of reading about COVID-19 though? I mean, I've been in quarantine for at least 1 month now, and gonna be at least 2 more weeks. I'd like to read about other things than COVID-19, especially since I can't really take any other action than to stay at home, especially because it would be illegal for me to not be at home.

So yeah, I'm one of the people who have started removing and blocking things that are mentioning COVID-19, since I can't really do anything about it. Once something actionable comes up, I'll hear it in the official press conferences from my country's government.

I guess luckily, my HN blocker only blocks mentions of COVID-19 and "corona virus", so the keyword "Coronapocalypse" managed to get through, and here I am...

I think it again comes down to one's priviledge. If you have the possibility to isolate yourself for months and you don't have to worry about anyone else, you may be able to afford to block the news entirely.

Everyone else needs to read the news (5 minutes a day is enough), because it may contain important information. Consider how you may miss a changed bus schedule announced on a local news site with "due to coronavirus" in the title. Same thing about the local supermarket, you may get home without food while exposing yourself and your family to additional risk. You may also be fined for failing to present specific papers when you leave your home for groceries, for which the requirement may have been announced a day prior.

Reading the news is crucial for most of us during this period, we just have to do it responsibly.

Here's also a great explanation for why reading the news could make a difference for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22783044

> Plus I learned by the news that losing sense of smell and taste was a likely indicator of Covid-19. I got tested and discovered I was positive.

I would never know about bus and local supermarket hours and changes through the news in any of the two cities that I lived in my life (Sao Paulo and Los Angeles). I would (and I did) find the supermarket and the bus company websites. That's not "news".

Cutting all news is a good strategy for some people for improving mental health. Just like anyone can have a cabinet full of chocolate and just control themselves to each a small piece twice a week, but it's much more efficient to just not have chocolate at all at home.

Also, the general tone of people that don't want to read news anymore is that they personally don't want it for themselves only. So, that's unrelated to people that consider it crucial and want to do it responsibly.

Lastly, I've seen this desire of consuming less or no news in a lot of people that are not the "HN crowd" or privileged people in terms of money.

> I would never know about bus and local supermarket hours and changes through the news in any of the two cities that I lived in my life (Sao Paulo and Los Angeles). I would (and I did) find the supermarket and the bus company websites. That's not "news".

That was your experience before this crisis. I've got hold of such information from a local news site a week ago, while official sites remained unchanged for a couple more days. I'm sure there are places where everything is well oiled, but for most of us things don't just snap into place and we need to be aware of our surroundings as much as it's tolerable for our mental health.

Checking the news once a day for 15 minutes is more than sufficient. Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of people aren’t on Twitter, don’t know what push notifications are, and really don’t need to do anything other than stay at home, wear a mask, and avoid others. Constantly refreshing media sites really isn’t productive or helpful.

I agree and that's what I'm advocating too, checking a trusted news source once a day.

That was my experience this week. I did went to Ralph's website to check their hours before going there.

searching "{bus route} {city} coronavirus" or "{grocery store location} coronavirus" is a much more effective way of getting this information than just reading the local news headlines for five minutes and hoping you see all the information that's relevant to you. polling the news every morning is not a good strategy for retrieving specific factual info.

when it comes to more complex things like "how bad is coronavirus about to be in the west?" reading the news for five minutes isn't nearly enough. for each story, you need to read writeups from several different publications before you can reconstitute anything like an accurate picture of what is happening. pick any important story and read the corresponding articles in the ny times, wsj, and maybe the washington post. it's really staggering how differently they present the facts (and which ones they choose to present at all). it takes a lot of work to come away from reading the news more informed rather than less.

Some of the replies are focusing too much on specific examples rather than applying the idea in general. Checking out a local news source and government announcements once a day during a crisis may expose you to information that you wouldn't know to look up, and that information may be vital.

Yeah, true, too focused on specifics. We also seem to come from vastly different sides of this coin, where if you can trust the government to have accurate, true and recent information published as soon as they have it, government resources are enough while in other places (like China, US or Russia for example), governments are a lot less trusted and reliable, and you might need to look up local news to get the full picture.

Thanks for sticking with us, explaining your viewpoint further :)

I'm sorry, I don't have the "possibility" to isolate myself, it's literally illegal for me to be outside right now!

As I said, all of things that impact us in our country, is told by us from the national government. Such as how you should act when going to the supermarket, if you need to present papers, what reasons you're allowed to be outside for and so on. Going through the news to get that information is just introducing unnecessary middlemen for information you get from either press conferences or straight from the government websites.

Everyone does not need to read the news. Follow the official guidelines, that's enough, and read them from the source. Then for the people who want to follow the news, follow it. But it's not a requirement for staying alive. At least where I live (YMMV).

> You may also be fined for failing to present specific papers when you leave your home for groceries, for which the requirement may have been announced a day prior.

Yeah, if they made it illegal to be outside without official papers, the government press conference would mention this + there would be information about this on the government websites. You're putting too much importance on "news" when there are official sources to hear/read from.

What's wrong with being privileged?

There's nothing wrong or right about being privileged. It is for many people inescapable. There is definitely something wrong with being ignorant of your own privilege though.

True. There is also something wrong with not being able to determine the extent of your own privilege for yourself.

Why should I feel bad because a starfish doesn't have legs? The privilege meme is ultimately pointless because it argues that there is an objective measure of something that is fundamentally subjective. Really the primary goal shouldn't be to care about who you are. Instead you should focus on positive sum thinking. Find ways to help people in a way that doesn't drag others down.

>Really the primary goal shouldn't be to care about who you are.

i don't understand at all what you're talking about. privilege isn't about you. it's exactly about other people relative to you and empathizing with them despite being that much more privileged.

What's wrong with being ignorant of it?

You act as if having a smart phone with data that can run apps is for the privilege few. Smartphones are ubiquitous in the poorest countries.

Hey there be careful pointing out that articles like this are worthless and just about privilege - hn doesn't take kindly to being called out.

current downvote: -2

the article is explicitly targeting white collar tech workers. of course it's a privileged take. this isn't a callout so much as restating the intro of the article.

>including, potentially, re-location to areas with a lower cost of living

as someone else has said: how many white collar tech workers can re-locate at the drop of a hat?

not many, unless you're deciding right now whether to renew your lease for the next year. this is an odd thing to pick on though.

> As others have discussed, one can minimize the impact of a recession by maximizing one’s personal runway, which involves cost-cutting measures (including, potentially, re-location to areas with a lower cost of living).

in context, this is a brief aside where he's explaining that he's not going to cover general cost-cutting in your personal life. it's tangential to the topic addressed by the article.